Confusion: I teach too much, and everything that I teach is out of context. In fact, Gatto also includes modern television programming as contributing to the false education that masquerades as “schooling.” Instead of receiving an actual education, students of schools follow a different kind of lesson plan.ġ. This process does not call for the education of students - it simply calls for their imprisonment in the school system for hours a day, along with a continuance of school in the form of homework and television. Unfortunately, though, schools have not been designed to educate anyone on the contrary, they are designed to churn out mass production citizens, much like an assembly line can mass produce cars that are nearly identical in their finished products. Gatto’s basic premise is that our schools do exactly what they were designed to do, and they do it brilliantly. It ensures a workforce that will rely on corporate institutions for their income, stimulation and self-esteem and will learn to find meaning in their lives solely in the production and consumption of material goods. It was designed to create a docile, friendly workforce to meet the growing needs of corporate capitalism. He asserts that American education actually works perfectly for what it was designed to do. John Gatto, a teacher for more than 30 years and winner of the New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year awards opposes this principle and actually says we should have less school, not more. But some people believe that the answer to some of these problems is just to have more schooling, not less.

These days, it is popular to declare that American education is “broken,” that kids do not receive the proper education, and that many of them are dropping out of school.

Book dumbing us down